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I'm using XP since service pack 1a ....
Now I bought a Toshiba laptop (model Satellite P 300 ) which came with Vista allready installed (family premium, french) on a 320 GB disk with following
disk configuration:

Now the problem is that the geographical software I'm working with for years doesn't work under Vista... I need to install XP and for that I need to

rearrange the partitions of my hard disk. Moreover I need a Data partition of about 200 GiO beceause of the huge amount of geographical data...

So what I would need is:

- the hidden "WinRE" patition (I do not see any need for it, but Toyota voids warranty if y delete this partition )
- a partition for Vista (bootable)
- a partition for XP (bootable)
- a quite big partition (200 GiO) for my data.

Up till now I couln't make this beceause:

1) Vista does not allow me to size down enough the existing partitions:
I can only resize partition "c" to 75 Gio whereas the "occupation" reported is less than 30 GiO
Same for partition "E" : can only be restricted to about 60 GiO with an "occupation" reported of only 4.2 GiO

2) Vista doesn't allow me to move the "E" partition . Moreover, there is in it a file called HDDRecovery. If I try to move this file for instance in a new directory , Vista will never start again and I have to rebuild the whole disk "as out of the box with the recovery DVD ... (seems that this is a sort of "tagging" of the hard disk intended to God knows what kind of "protection" of Vista, and not for "system rescue" as suggested by the name of the file... )

3) Any attempt to install Windows XP on the "E" "data" partition fails with a blue screen . The only help I found on the french net was: install XP first and then install Vista . Alas this is impossible beceause Toshiba doest not supply a installer disk for Vista on Family Edition, even premium...(They say that this has been imposed by Microsoft ...)

4) only three "principal" partition (bootable) and one "extended" partition can be created on a system. In this case the 3 potentially bootable partition are allready in use, thus preventing safe installation of any other operating system on this computer (with own boot) ... including microsoft Windows XP. What is the sake of making the "data" partition "bootable" ??? any way to transform that partition into an "extended" one ???

Finally, how can I get out of that absurd situation ?? This forum is my last resort before sending back the computer to Toshiba and ask for refund ?
Thanks in advance